ORIGIN

The spotlight was blinding. Not only because it was, well, a spotlight; but because the Sentinel's particular magic was the sort that let him see perfectly in the pitch dark... and terribly in bright light. He could see nothing but white, for a moment, and all of his eyes blinked and squinted against it.

Was it he she was calling, 'honey?' What, then, was honey? Ahh--at least she would explain what a 'girlfriend' was. That was good.

But suddenly, the Sentinel could see again--shadows erupted into the room, flooding all around him, and he blinked but had little time to process the abrupt return of vision. It felt as though he were falling, tumbling, nausea curdling his gut. One spined arm shot out to grip his seat, the other propping himself up with his halberd, knuckles clenched around its haft. He half doubled over, an odd sound escaping him--half hiss of pain, half bestial howl--as some foreign pressure felt like it would burst his ears. He slid downward, unable to stop himself, and braced against the seat.

It was from this position--half in his seat, half out, on one knee with his halberd upright before him--that he saw the great claws appear.

Then the green maw, and the eyes, which for a moment--he thought belonged to Master Vargas. But they were far too big, and not enough eyes, and--now came the boar's head and the ram's horns, the golden ring... Something struck him, like a memory, a sense of deja vu. His magic-... It was his magic, he realized; it resonated with this, and powerfully, too. Green bursts of electricity shot out, as if this creature was a storm, as though the thunder that now shook the little studio was part of Him. And the Sentinel, suddenly realizing what he was looking at, stayed on that one knee.

Not that he had much choice.

But his realization was one of wonder and horror both. This-... this was the Creator.

The Creator, he had called that out--hadn't he?--only moments before. And hadn't he been told--hadn't the son of his stone's former bearer told him, warned him--that the last to wear his stone had called down Raheerah merely by speaking of him? Called nearly an apocalypse upon the cave, just by telling a tale of his name?

It is a gift, the Sentinel realized, but with a sinking feeling, as though, no--it were a curse. He would have to be very, very careful what he said, from now on, because he had just summoned the Creator.

(At least, so his admittedly forgiveable logic went.)

Then the ground began to tear and crumble, and the voice roared through his mind--RREVALK, he said, and the Sentinel made a note not to use that name in conversation.

Then the world exploded. Boiling oil, roaring around him--and his magic sparked and flared as if in sympathy with what flared on every side. It seemed to curl in his already-sick gut, and suddenly he retched, but what came out was not his food--it was a charged lump of sizzling green, as though the Creator's electricity had boiled Chaos up within him. He looked up.

He saw the Oil coming for him.

He looked down again, hunching against its onslaught, but the pressure broke him down--the smoke and green flashes engulfed him, overloaded him, burning away his life until his stone shot up to save him.

Past that, the Sentinel would remember nothing.